Hamas orders schools in Gaza to be segregated by gender

Palestinian girls over the age of nine must not be educated by men or
alongside boys in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas ministry of education announced
on Monday.

This is the latest in a string of recent announcements from the Hamas regime in Gaza tightening restrictions on Palestinian girls and womenPhoto: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

By Phoebe Greenwood, Tel Aviv

5:20PM BST 01 Apr 2013

Gender segregation is already in effective in the majority of schools in the Palestinian territory but from the next school year, it will be enforced by law in every one of Gaza's education establishments, including Christian and private schools and those run by the United Nations.

"We are a Muslim people. We do not need to make people Muslims and we are doing what serves our people and their culture," Waleed Mezher, a legal advisor to the ministry of education told Reuters, explaining that the Hamas government was attempting to protect conservative Muslim values with legislation.

This is the latest in a string of recent announcements from the Hamas regime in Gaza tightening restrictions on Palestinian girls and women. An annual UN-sponsored marathon in the Gaza Strip was cancelled last month because Hamas authorities would not permit either foreign or local women to run alongside men, even if they were veiled.

Human rights activists in Gaza explain that since Hamas came to power in 2006, the Islamist leadership has issued a string of declarations on the issue of female modesty, including an attempt to force female university students and lawyers to wear a veil and forbidding women to smoke narguile pipes in public.

Each of these edicts were dropped eventually in the face of opposition from civil society groups.

However the cancellation of the marathon after four years of allowing men and women to race together, followed promptly by the introduction of a law to segregate male and female pupils, has revealed what many fear is a firmer resolve on the part of the Hamas leadership to enforce Islamic codes on the public.

"They are fundamentalists who believe Islam says women should stay at home and not go out without a hijab. They are a fundamentalist party who want every section of society under their control, including civil society, the young and women," said Hala Qishawi, director of the Women's Affairs Centre in Gaza.

"What is worrying is that enforcing these Islamist restrictions on women appears to have become a priority. Of course that is deeply worrying."